1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display control apparatus and method, a program, and a recording media and, more particularly, to a display control apparatus and method, a program, and a recording media that are configured to provide an easy-to-understand and easy-to-operation GUI (Graphical User Interface).
2. Description of the Related Art
The increasing prevalence of digital broadcasting has been increasing the chances of displaying program guides, such as EPG (Electronic Program Guide), on television receivers and so on.
Related-art application programs configured to display program guides or related-art application programs configured to display programs retrieved with predetermined conditions display program guides (channel axis and time axis) and search results (channel axis and genre axis) by use of a two-dimensional GUI, for example. In general, a program guide is represented by a vertical axis of time and a horizontal axis of broadcasting channel and a search result is represented by a vertical axis of time and a horizontal axis of genre, for example.
Referring to FIG. 1, there is shown an exemplary related-art program guide. As shown, the vertical axis of the program guide is indicative of broadcasting times while the horizontal axis is indicative of channels.
Referring to FIG. 2, there is shown another exemplary related-art program guide. In this example, the vertical axis of the program guide is indicative of broadcasting time and channel while the horizontal axis is indicative of broadcasting dates.
If two or more short-time programs are broadcast, the short time program guide to be first broadcast among continuous short-time program guides is displayed, below which a “more” marker indicative there exists two or more short-time program guides. When the cursor is positioned at the “more” marker, the short-time program guide to be broadcast next is displayed, followed by the switching between display operations along the broadcasting time as the cursor key is operated (refer to Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Hei 10-262192 for example).
Further, a GUI indicative of content categories is proposed in which the selection of content is made by category, such as recorded content, terrestrial broadcast content, and satellite broadcast content, for example. FIG. 3 shows an exemplary related-art GUI for letting a user select content by category, in which the X-axis represents category and the Y-axis represents channel.